and then we can make the appropriate choices moving forward. >> thank you very much for joining us tonight. thanks. >> my pleasure. >> chris hayes is up next. opening day. let's play "hardball." good evening. i'm chris matthews in washington. tomorrow morning in louisville, kentucky, the 2016 presidential campaign gets into real action. rand paul, who just beat hillary clinton in a respected pennsylvania poll, announces his presidential candidacy. and before you sell this guy short, just watch how far and how fast he's moved. in 2010, he knocked out not only the establishment republican candidate, mitch mcconnell's candidate, but beat the democrat in november by a dozen points. he shellacked the guy. now he's a genuine contender for the white house, when senator paul announces tomorrow he'll be

joined by former oklahoma congressman j.c. watts who joins me now from louisville. congressman watts, it's great to have you back. you're a regular on the show for so long. i guess you will be now again. as a big surrogate for mr. paul. senator paul. why has j.c. watts of oklahoma, evangelical man of the south, bible guy, why are you with a libertarian guy like rand paul? >> well, rand, chris obviously has some libertarian leanings but i think he has the right perspective and i think he wants to do the right thing. and over the last 2 1/2 years that i've been talking to him, that i've had his ear, i think he's wanted to learn, and i think the things that he's done he's not just take on just your typical conservative issues on the social side and on the economic side, but he's gone much further than that and he's gone into nontraditional constituencies. i think he's tried to be very

consistent in striking up a dialogue with those nontraditional constituencies. and i think that's what we need. you know, post-jack kemp, i've been looking for somebody that would offer up himself or herself to have this type of dialogue, more than a narrow constituency. >> well, you know, the thing that i've been beating the drum on around here for a couple years, j.c., is the republican party's efforts at suppressing the vote. all these new requirements about photo i.d.s and then some of these republican leaders like in pennsylvania just come out and say, yeah, we do it to suppress the vote. one guy said, we'll keep the black vote down with it, in so many words. this guy, you believe is different? >> well, i talked to the senator about this. he wants to expand ways that we can get more people to the polls to vote, and, you know, the nonviolent offenders, we've had the conversation about that in saying that -- >> right. >> -- they should have the right

to vote. and, again, he's talked about things in the last four years that most conservatives would be afraid of getting voted off the island if they were talking about those type of things. and obviously he's made some mistakes. he's evolving. but i think he is honestly -- he has honestly made the case to me that j.c., i want to have the right perspective, i want to learn, i want to go to the next -- take the country to the next level in so many areas. and, chris, we're so focused on the 30,000-foot level on so many of these issues that we don't get down to the 300-foot level and have a dialogue, have a conversation, have deeper relationships, and i honestly think that he wants to do that. >> well, let me tell you why i like him and you may disagree because we have often disagreed, j.c. i like him because he's not a hawk. he's not a neocon. he's not somebody who always wants to take us back to the

middle east, the latest country yet to go to war with. he seems like a guy who has restraint in the use of military just like he has restraint in the use of big government. what do you think of that? >> well, i will tell you this, chris, my conversations with him, i don't think there's any question that his philosophy in terms of war is, you know -- if we're fighting a war, we win, they lose. that's the bottom line. however, i think he hasn't taken on a demeanor that says, let's shoot and then aim. and i think -- >> yeah. >> -- most people agree with that. and i think this isis thing is getting crazy, it's getting more crazy by the day. and kenya and nigeria and all over the middle east. and it's something that we certainly need to be concerned about, and i think he is, but the fact that he said, you know, as john kennedy would say, you know, never, never, never fear to negotiate, but never negotiate out of fear.

so i do think that -- now, he's going to have to make that case to the american people because you've got many people trying to frame who he is, what he believes in terms of our national security, but, again, i think his philosophy, no question, is if we're going to do it, let's do it the right way. we win, they lose. >> any room on the ticket for you, sir? >> chris, i'm having too good a time hanging out with you like this. and by the way -- >> what a charmer. >> -- i had to jump through hoops to get here tonight. >> i'm glad you did. we did every method of seduction to get you here. thank you so much. u.s. congressman j.c. watts of oklahoma. great guy. thanks for coming on. you'll make news tomorrow. and today, senator paul released a three-minute video which includes actually a clip from this show to tease tomorrow's big announcement. here's some of the video that has us in it. ♪ >> the senator for kentucky

might just be the candidate who ends up winning this thing. >> he's got the organization on the ground right now. he's in all 50 states. >> it's time for a new president. >> rand paul! rand paul! >> well, he got the message, he's running against washington. that's means hillary clinton. i'm joined by two of the best front page political reporters in the business, robert costa, national political reporter for "washington post," and nick confessore, political reporter for "the new york times." i want to start with you, nick. let's talk about this. is this fellow a real contender? as you look at the shape of the field right now? >> absolutely, chris. i think he'll have his moment. look, his foreign policy views, if you took things he has said on foreign policy, and polled them individually, it's hard to imagine any of them would not be kind of -- in a primary electorate or nationally. he believes what i think a lot

of ordinary people think, the problem is foreign policy in the country is crafted by elites in both parties and not by voters. >> yeah. >> in washington, think tanks, the state department it's very different. it's hard for me to think of anything he said on foreign policy that your average voter is not going to shake their head in agreement with. >> i'm so with you. here's a poll to back up what you said. the grassroots regular republicans are not as hawkish as money people, the ones who make all the noise including with jeb bush. here, a recent quinnipiac poll, has rand paul in a close race in match-ups with hillary clinton in key swing states, ones that matter. ohio, paul is in ear shot. he's 41%. clinton's 46%. right? >> exactly. >> in florida he's within the margin of error, 43%, 46% against hillary clinton. in pennsylvania where i come from, he leads clinton. i want to go with robert on that, robert costa. despite the hawkish neocon talk,

the average working guy and woman in pennsylvania goes, wait a minute, that's us who has to do the fighting, our kids. we're not going to into another stupid war that people laugh at afterwards and our kid comes home beat up. >> senator paul looks at what his father did in 2008, 2012. he sees someone who in almost every primary was in the top three. he starts with the base. question is how does he get number one or two? >> what's his percentage of the -- >> i'd say it's about 20%. libertarian base, 20%, 25%. add in the young voters that's his coalition. >> here's who he takes into battle with him. mitch mcconnell from paul's state of kentucky. "national journal" reports a group of house members, mainly tea partyers in paul's corner. justin amish of michigan, paul labrador of ohio, he's pretty conservative. mark sanford of south carolina who's an interesting fellow in all kinds of ways. let me go back to nick on this.

this is a small cadre of people behind him. i'm amazed there's anybody behind him he's such an individualist. >> he's not been a party guy. i suspect the alliance with mitch mcconnell is more, you know, alliance of convenience as an alliance of love. but look, those general election match-ups, it's funny to see, you know, him and walker and bush are the guys who do the best against hillary in the general election. there's a reason for that. there's going to be a group of people in the party, the hawks as you describe them, who are going to fight tooth and nail against him who are going to pour money into the race to make sure he does not become a contender. >> let's talk about that. you know, couple years ago, couple cycles ago, they run into each other after a while. his father, ron, dared to say something about stupid wars. after we'd gotten into iraq and we found out the whole thing was crazily put together, had no basis in fact. and he made a reasonable comment, but immediately giuliani starts going -- i like

rudy as a personality, but over and over again, a sentence that included the word "9/11" in it, so everything is 9/11. >> it's going to be even more rough this time around. john bolton having a long shot, peter king from new york may run for president. lindsey graham from south carolina. all these hawks flying in looking at paul trying to edge him out of the race. what is going to -- >> can he get shouted down like his father was or can he speak his mind? >> he's going to speak his mind. he still has a noninterventionist philosophy. the question is can he not scare some of those suburban hawks away who are still somewhat sympathetic of george w. bush? >> yeah, i don't know. what do you think, nick? do you think the suburban philadelphia person, everybody's talking about that as being the key, i think. it was george will this week in his column and the people i read relentlessly like he and peggy noonan. if you can't carry pennsylvania, you have to be contending there in the suburbs to win the general across the country. i don't think those people are hawks. i may be wrong. >> i think people are worried about defense and security. it's not the way it was even

last fall when isis and diseases abroad, so to speak, were on everyone's mind. the thing about foreign policy, you never know, chris, exactly when it's going to become a central issue in a campaign. >> i know. >> we've had a long time now where it wasn't really at the forefront. several campaigns now where it wasn't the main issue. the question is, is this campaign going to be one with iran and isis where it comes back to the forefront for a broad section of voters and not just a big interest group in one party? >> yeah. try keeping up with this like you guys do for a living and i try to do. you pick up the paper today and realize the fight over tikrit, you know, the shia militia are doing a hell of a job smashing and taking back territory from isis. what side are we on? the shia militia. >> this is what hurts paul. when you talk to his inner circle, they didn't think it was going to be a foreign policy election. >> it's a hard decision where do we go in? where do we go here? with the usual sunni allies, we

have a problem which is isis which is sunni. we don't get this. the americans aren't part of the sunni/shia conflict. >> i'm not sure the average voter who is supposed to be critical of rand paul theoretically on these issues could even tell which side any of those groups you mentioned are. it's confusing even to me. >> i'm the only one -- we'll get into this in the next segment. munich, munich, munich. keep saying munich, tie in hitler because people know what he looks like. thanks, guys. i read both of your papers every day and i read it in paper. i go down to the driveway and get it like the old days. >> good job, chris. thank you. >> i read "the wall street journal," too. coming up, president obama has a tough road ahead on the deal with iran. he needs to convince senate democrats the deal makes us safer. he's facing a republican party that wants to fight him every step of the way. a crowd that constantly compares iran and the agreement to the appeasement of hitler back in '38. plus, from cop to criminal.

former new york police commissioner bernard kerik joins us to talk about his new book, "from jailer to jailed." he learned all about that later in his stunning fall from grace. that's going to be fascinating. ted cruz says the world is on fire. hillary clinton is all about experience. of all the candidates running for president in 2016, who's got the best message? >> finally, "let me finish" with my theory about presidential elections. it's who's got the best strategist. that side wins. this is "hardball." the place for politics. you're clean. bam! charmin ultra strong cleans so much better it meets even the highest standards of clean. with a soft duraclean texture, charmin ultra strong is 4 times stronger. and you can use up to 4x less. charmin ultra strong. boy: once upon a time, there was a nice house that lived with a family. one day, it started to rain and rain. water got inside and ruined everybody's everythings.

the house thought she let the family down. but the family just didn't think a flood could ever happen. the reality is floods do happen. protect what matters. get flood insurance. visit floodsmart.gov/flood to learn more. if your purse is starting to look more like a tissue box... you may be muddling through allergies. try zyrtec® for powerful allergy relief. and zyrtec® is different than claritin®. because it starts working faster on the first day you take it. zyrtec®. muddle no more™ . now to the guy rand paul will try to take down, jeb bush who is the front-runner now, but is not exactly this year's pied piper, is he? "the new york times" reports today jeb bush identified himself as hispanic in a 2009 florida voter registration application. a bush spokesperson offered the newspaper no explanation, but bush later tweeted "my mistake. don't think i fooled anyone."

oh, what a waspy guy he is. we'll be right back after this.

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it's starting to feel a lot more like september of 1938 where neville chamberlain, prime minister of great britain the deal he concluded with hitler was akin to peace in our time. >> that was former aide to president george w. bush ron christie on the friday show. he wasn't the only one to compare iran to this infamous moment in history, appeasement of hitler back in '38. >> this morning, i had another talk with the german chancellor, hitler, and here is the paper which bears his name upon it as well as mine. >> ah, the word of adolf hitler. good as gold. anyway, last week, senator mark kirk said, "neville chamberlain got a lot more out of hitler

than wendy sherman got out of iran." being john kerry's deputy at state department. others said before there even was a deal. here they go. >> if you really are a student of history, this reminds you of the neville chamberlain/hitler moment when chamberlain had a signed agreement that ended up being nothing but a piece of paper to hitler. >> the united states is about to sign an agreement with the ayatollahs in tehran over their nuclear weapons program that will be, in my judgment, the biggest single act of appeasement by the west since munich in september of 1938. >> i believe that history may well record it as a mistake and a catastrophe on the order of magnitude of munich. and when our negotiators return with a promise of peace in our

time, we should believe it no more now than we should have believed it then. >> okay. why has this become such a popular refrain on the right? i have a theory. i'm joined by eugene robinson, columnist for the "washington post" and msnbc political analyst. and michael ruben, scholar at the american enterprise institute. he's the author of "dancing with the devil." it seems to me the neoconservative movement intellectually has been found on a couple things. they didn't like community control of the teachers in new york, especially. i understand some of that. this notion, it's about world war ii again, that somehow history repeats itself. excuse me if i don't like that argument, it's always munich, because the argument of munich got us into vietnam. it was like hitler in the land. so, therefore, every political or geopolitical situation involves conflict with an enemy, which is normal, somehow goes back to, oh, this is neville chamberlain giving back czechoslovakia. is it? >> i'll go back further. pre-world war ii.

it's kellogg saying it's naivety that everyone wants peace. the reason why it's not neville chamberlain, chris, is neville chamberlain was against a much stronger hitler. obama is caving. >> he didn't have an army. >> obama is caving in from a position of strength. >> let me ask you this. i want to get to gene. the implication of the debate with netanyahu and conservatives in this country, hawks in this country if you will, is there's a third option. that it isn't war. we're not going to have to blow them apart, use bunker busters or help the israelis. there's another option. we can make a tougher deal work. do you believe that? >> we gave $11.9 billion worth of unfrozen sanctions relief. the annual budget of the revolutionary guard that killed hundreds of americans, $5.6 billion a year. why -- it's like giving a little kid dessert first then asking them to eat his spinach.

>> there is a better deal, you argue? >> yes. economic leverage. oil was down to $50 a barrel. >> you, sir? >> well, where's the better deal? if there's a better deal, where is it? the answer is they got actually a better deal than most expected them to get and, in fact, the alternative to this deal is likely military action. i mean, because it's not going to be tougher sanctions because you're not going to get the russians and chinese to go along with tougher sanctions. you're talking about unilateral sanctions which aren't going to take you very far against iran. >> do we have the world with us for tougher sanctions? >> not vladimir putin, but most of the toughest sanctions were bill clinton with his executive orders as well as some of the bush administration financial sanctions. but look, you have -- when iran is suffering economically, can you negotiate tougher verification? yeah. do you have to give them financial relief before they pony up? yeah. the problem is with iran, it's one step forward, two steps back. >> you think -- >> we don't know what the deal is -- >> do we have partners in this?

>> you're assuming things about the deal that you don't know. you don't know when the sanctions come off or when they get relief. >> neither does kerry and neither does obama. here's the thing. even with north korea 20 years ago, you didn't have a situation where both sides came out and it was almost as if they were talking about completely different -- >> let's talk about this day forward. here we are at april 6th, right? there's probably going to be a vote in the senate the next couple weeks. you want it to go down, right? you want 67 senators to challenge the president on this? >> i think it's a bad deal, yes. >> you want 67 senators to challenge -- >> yes,i do. >> what happens then? >> we go back to the negotiating table. >> the president of the united states having been defeated by his congress goes back, goes back to where? >> in his -- >> where's this meeting? where's this meeting? >> chris, in this "the new york times" interview, obama said iran is not going to get nuclear weapons on my watch. i hate to break it to you, the world isn't ending its watch in 20 months. they want iran not to get nuclear weapons, period. that's why we've got to use our leverage and still have that

leverage. >> if i were taking your position, the last thing i would want would be for this deal to go down because i would then have a president who's going to be in office for another 18 months or so. i would expect that he's not going to bomb iran. that, in fact, iran is going to, perhaps, thinking it's not going to be able to negotiate a deal with the west to its satisfaction, rush pell-mell, perhaps secretly, closer toward a nuclear weapon, or nuclear weapons capability, and that at the end of 20 months or whatever, we'd have a situation that was more dangerous rather than less dangerous. >> so -- >> if i were taking your position, i would want the deal to go through, and then i would say, wait until a republican -- >> i don't think the senate's going to come through, gene, until june 30th, and we don't know what the deal is. what we have -- >> if this goes down -- let's go back to the third option. if this president fails with his whole effort here, and he will

fail if 2/3 of the congress rejects him and overrides his veto, he's left with nothing on the table as you say, gene, nothing on the table so he's a lame duck. >> he's already a lame duck. >> how do we avoid a war with iran? >> ultimately you avoid a war with iran by credibility. >> who does this? >> the united states, the bahrainis, the saudis do this. >> you're suggesting military action in replacement for what failed diplomatically? if this deal goes down -- >> every comprehensive deal has a diplomatic informational military and economic component. >> let's talk reality today. this deal goes down, what happens next? >> if this deal goes down, frankly -- >> how close are we to war? >> i don't think we're close to a war at all. >> we're not going to have to bomb them? >> no. why would you bomb iran without having a policy in place to take advantage of the delay? that's where i would disagree with the notion that we have to bomb iran. the fact of the matter is we have to worry about not just the nuclear weapons but the regime that would wield them. it's not just the iranian regime

writ large. it's the guard corps that would have command of the control. >> you have a plan for regime change in iran? >> why is it, gene, that liberals and european greens all over the world support organized laker but refuse to support iranian trade unions, for example? >> okay. here we go. i invited you to give your views. do you think we're going to end up having to bomb them? >> no. >> what will we end up doing? >> i think we'll have to use economic coercion. iranians can't make payroll with oil going down. >> how do we do this -- >> the saudis are doing it for us because we forfeited our leadership, chris. >> so -- >> what about the oil narcotic? >> you're so fast here. the saudis are going to bring down the iranian leadership? >> the saudis are going to bring down the iranian economy because they have more strategically than the obama administration. >> what do we have to do to make it work, then? >> leading from behind ain't the place to start. comprehensive strategy, chris, what you want to do is undercut the iranian economy so they can't make payroll -- >> how do we do that?

>> keep oil prices low, number one, and it's working. >> number one, the saudis today announced their support of this deal. number two, the idea that iran is going to suddenly cave under economic pressure seems to me absurd. iran did not cave under a million deaths in war against iraq -- >> actually, ayatollah khomeini got on the radio and said it's like drinking poison but the cost has been too great to bear. >> my problem is -- michael, thank you for coming on. >> thank you. >> my problem is the munich metaphor, comparison has been use to take us into vietnam, into iraq. it's question of do we have the guts to fight? i don't think it's about guts to fight. it's the brain to figure out how to get through these things. anyway, eugene robinson, thank you, michael ruben. up next, former police commissioner bernard kerik will be here. he was nearly the secretary of homeland security until a dramatic fall from grace that left him behind bars. he'll be here when we come back. this is quite a show tonight.

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welcome back to "hardball." new jersey native bernie kerik rose from high school dropout to become police commissioner in new york. in 2001 under then-mayor rudy giuliani. he also had been, this would become oddly important, commissioner of corrections. in 2004 george bush wanted him to join his cabinet. his failure to pay a nanny taxes made him withdraw. by february of 2010, bernie kerik stood convicted eight counts of criminal conspiracy, tax evasion and lying under oath and headed to prison. joining me, bernard kerik author of the new book "from jailer to jailed." thank you for coming on. >> thanks, chris. >> i want to ask you what you know, what we don't know. what the fall from grace felt like, what prison was like. most fear rape in prison, fear being beat up, fear the hell of

it. start with that. what was the worst part of something you never thought you'd experience? prison life? >> honestly, chris, the worst part for me was not prison life. the worst part for me was the removal of my kids, was being taken away from your family. and i think the depravation of freedom, for anyone, especially someone in my position or someone in your position, the depravation of freedom is far more profound than you could even imagine. and the loss of your children and family is beyond anything you can comprehend really. until you're there. >> you spent two months in solitary while waiting to testify against an old friend. most of your time was spent in minimum security prison in western maryland. in the book you say "you come to the realization that you're staying there. one piece at a time your hope gets chipped away and go into a deeper mode. deeper depression set in. this is something you can't get

away from." i don't know where to begin here. did you think you were wrongly accused? did you think you had screwed up? what was, to yourself -- i guess i'm catholic. how do you look at this eternally? did you say mostly me, mostly them? or others guys do it, i just got screwed? how do you look at it? >> as i said in the book, i made mistakes. i made plenty of mistakes. i'm not perfect. no one is. at the end of the day, i think my mistakes could have been handled differently. they could have been handled civilly or ethically. >> without you getting convicted. >> without a criminal conviction. you know? keep in mind, and you -- you were fully aware of this at the time, i was actually being prosecuted, being investigated for tax violations and nanny issues when timothy geithner was being confirmed treasury. you know, after he admitted he had failed to pay his own taxes. >> yeah. >> look, i made mistakes. the bottom line is i paid for

those mistakes, and i think what's important right now is the content of the book, the reality of our criminal justice system and how it should be changed. >> you know, my colleague reverend sharpton talks about this, a lot talk about this, we have too many african-americans in prison, a particular group that's in there. when you were in there, did you sense there was this unfairness in the way people were being put away? >> honestly, yes, chris. and i talk about that. one, i put a lot of people in prison. people -- for long periods of time. but they were really bad people that did bad things. then i went to prison, i meet a young 19-year-old black man, a kid, that was sentenced to ten years for a first-time low-level nonviolent drug offense. people sentenced to 15 years, 20 years. commercial fishermen that caught too many fish. we're putting way too many people in prison across this country that didn't have to be there to learn from their

mistakes or learn what they did wrong or pay for those mistakes. we are creating, in essence, a complete second-class generation of men and women by doing what we're doing and i think it has to stop. it's unsustainable. we can't continue to do this. >> your book is called "from jailer to jailed." you know what you speak of. thank you so much. bernard kerik. new author of a great new book. up next, the newest battle lines in the fight over the so-called religious freedom laws. hollywood picked up the fight. anybody see "the good wife" last night? it's off the pages of the newspaper this week. i don't know how they do it. you're watching "hardball." the place for politics.

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welcome back to "hardball." well, the fight over religious freedom set off by legislative action in indiana then in arkansas last week made its way to hollywood in last night's episode of "the good wife." a debate over religious liberty was on full display. i don't know how they did this but they did it. >> the religious freedom act allows exemptions in laws. >> not in california. california does not have one. >> let's say it's in new mexico. >> it doesn't matter.

the baker is refusing to sell a wedding cake to a gay couple for who they are. that is the heart of discrimination. >> what if our baker won't sell wedding came to a gay couple but will sell them bear claws, cupcakes? >> that's insane, selling someone something they don't want is the same thing as refusing them service altogether. a vegetarian couple walks into a market and you refuse to sell them vegetables, sell anything but vegetables, you're denying them service. a gay couple wants to buy a wedding came and you refuse to sell them a wedding cake. >> they got more sophisticated than that last night. in the real world, it doesn't end there. the laws that discriminate against gays and lesbians found support from governors beyond indiana and arkansas. bobby jindal defended the rights of private businesses to deny

some services to same-sex couples. here he is taking the hard view here. >> i'm disappointed. let's remember what this debate was originally all about. this was about businessowners that don't want to choose between their christian faith, their sincerely held religious beliefs and being able to operate their businesses. now, what they don't want is a government to force them to participate in wedding ceremonies that contradict their beliefs. they simply want the right to say we don't want to be forced to participate in those ceremonies. so i was disappointed you could see christians and their businesses face discrimination in indiana. i hope the legislators will fix that, rectify that. >> i think he was joined there by rick santorum. a couple guys thought that was the right way to go. our panel members, ryan grim, jeanne cummings and john brabender. we have to start with you. >> i knew you would. >> you're a rick santorum guy. i mike rick santorum. i find it hard to figure out where the courts are going to end up here.

is it okay -- we agree if you open up a convenience store on the open, see a couple gay fellows come in, looking for gum. for everybody to come to a -- everybody has to be allowed in. then to get the catering and ordering up special stuff for weddings and stuff, i don't know. that gets into contracting. i'm waiting to see how that figures out. he's saying i'm against any kind of law that requires you to serve gay people basically. >> let's go with what we agree with first. i mean, we start getting into the emotional side, the legal side, i think all of us would agree here, rick santorum would agree if there was a restaurant that said i do not want to serve a gay couple and i'm not going to serve a gay couple because of my religious beliefs, he would not go to that restaurant. i don't think any of us would go to that restaurant. we would tell our friends not to go to that restaurant. >> what would happen then? would the restaurant be allowed to do that? >> the crux of the issue becomes does the government have the right to step in and tell that

restaurant owner that they have to disregard their religious beliefs and take an action that the government feels that they should have to? and that's really what a lot of these governors are saying. that's a lot of what the conservative republicans are saying is. we did not intend this to be a discrimination issue against anybody. >> okay. think of all the words you can think of that are negative about people who are gay. we grew up in high school with them a lot of us. they're bad words. put a sign over the store, none of them allowed in here. do you think that's legal? i'm just asking a question. is that legal? >> i have no idea. >> answer the question. we're debating here. is that illegal? >> no. what we're debating is i would not go to the store. >> you might if you're tough. you'd say, i'm going to prove i'm right. >> i'm saying -- >> you'd do it. you'd do it. if it said no brabenders allowed, you'd go. >> you'd go with me. >> i'd do that. >> sometimes the real test of freedom is allowing something that we find abhorrent. >> jeanne, politically, i get the feeling because jindal and

santorum are taking the conservative side, you're allowed to say no to certain weddings, parties you don't want to be participating in religiously, that that's going to be an appealing argument to a good chunk of the iowa caucus vote, of the early primary vote in the republican party. a good chunk of it. >> a good chunk of it. a big percentage, 20%, 30% of the iowa caucusgoers are evangelicals or -- they're all almost all christians. so, this matters to them. and santorum and jindal will indeed use it because they've got space now because bush moved. bush initially defended the law. >> will ted cruz come chasing after them? ryan? >> not come chasing. he'll come charging in and go after them. >> you think there will be a pull to the right here? >> this is not a good thing for them to be talking about. >> is this like the candidates of a couple years ago, the two guys mourdock and akin, don't talk about rape if you're a male?

>> ted cruz jumped out extremely quickly. he knows he lives or dies in iowa and wants to come out of there on top. that's the place he can take out scott walker, take out -- if he can win these -- >> you can kiss off the gay community of the united states and their relatives and friends, you can risk that to win the iowa caucuses? >> but it's a short-term risk. it's short term. >> you think they'll forgive you? is this like bibi netanyahu saying i don't like arabs one night? >> long term this is not good for them. >> i want to talk about something serious. what i study. i want to talk about themes and strategies that win elections. we haven't heard it from hillary yet. i want to know why these people running for president think they should be president. reagan was tough patriotism. jimmy carter was innocence. nixon was tough politics. i'm tougher than this guy. kennedy was let's get this country moving again.

god, fdr was new deal. they all had a theme. i want to know whose themes we're going to see now. this is "hardball." the place for politics. you get used to food odors in your car. you think it smells fine but your passengers smell this.. eliminate odors you've gone noseblind to for up to 30 days with the febreze car vent clip. smells nice... so you and your passengers can breathe happy.

mitt romney is in the top 1% but not in a way you might expect. romney's ncaa brackets are better 99.98% of the brackets filled out in espn's bracket challenge. he picks them all the time. he's always right. romney predicted all four final teams this year and has duke over wisconsin in tonight's championship.

tonight is the deal maker for him. if duke wins tonight, romney is perfect. we'll be right back.

we are back. as more 2016 candidates declare for president, their next challenge to develop a message for their respective campaigns. a message. a winning message communicates a candidate's rationale for running in the first place as well, of course, a vision for the country's future. most importantly, it should differentiate a candidate from whoever else is running against them. it should say this is why i should be picked for president. in 1960, for example, john f. kennedy said he would get the country moving again promising vigorous action in contrast with a static leadership of the

1950s. it was just right with the pulse. richard nixon asked america to vote like your whole world depended on, in '68 he brought test and experience to a country divided over vietnam. in '76 jimmy carter promised he would never tell a lie. in 1960, john f. kennedy said he would get the country moving again, it was just right with the pulse. richard nickson asked the world to vote hike your whole word depended on it. in 76, jimmy carter promised he would never tell a lie, and his we're back with our round table ryan, jean, and john. who has the best theme so far? >> no, but it doesn't matter any more. >> at this point your theme line is toward a base vote that you can get to become the nominee.

you can't have a universal theme that plays for everybody. if you look at rand paul, tomorrow, his theme will be attack washington. anti-washington. cruz will be like the conservative you can trust. they will all play to some small position because they're not trying to get 50 plus one -- >> if they go for the 30% and they win the iowa caucuses, how will they get 51 in november? >> i think cruz is selling i'm the fighter, i will go in there, sure we all believe the same things, but i'm the fighter. >> i will filibuster, shut down the government -- >> i will fight the way you want me to fight. bush is coming in like his brother and father that may or may not be good. empathetic to newcomers he wants to lure to the party and trying

to stay true to the roots where he started. scott walker is, you know, iron man. i have beat them all. and i'm still standing, and now he is wrapping himself around the reagan mystique. hillary clinton, one of the first things we did hear is experience, and she mentions bipartisan legislation that she worked on in the senate. >> she doesn't have to worry about the primaries. >> but some of those were anti-washington. anti-establishment on the republican side. >> it is tough, tough for hillary because she can't go back to experience because she torched that by doing it so badly last time. >> it didn't work for mccain either. >> she can't do change. >> how about -- our producers think there might be something more subtle.

like i'm grown up, a grandmother, a human being, i'm part of you, i'm living like you, i have a grand kid. i have a stake in this battle and i have a lot of maturity. >> that is experience. a veteran in the fight that can go to washington and have the best shot of getting washington to work again. >> put that together and then you've got manage. thank you ryan for coming in, jean, john. when we return, let me finish about my theory on presidential elections, and russell crowe will be here tomorrow. i bring the gift of the name your price tool to help you find a price that fits your budget. uh-oh. the name your price tool. she's not to be trusted. kill her. flo: it will save you money! the name your price tool isn't witchcraft! and i didn't turn your daughter into a rooster.

she just looks like that. burn the witch! the name your price tool a dangerously progressive idea.

let me finish tonight with this. i have a theory about presidential elections. to win you need a top drawer strategist. and besides message, he needs to know how to exploit it. david axlerod knew that the key what who can get us out of this war. in 1992, james carville knew that for george herbert walker bush was to connect with regular people.

bill clinton promised to watch out fear people who worked hard and played by the rules. jimmy carter new the country wanted more than the usual rhetoric. they wanted a governor, not a senator, who would focus on making things work, not the same old agenda, so jimmy who beat the whole pack of the liberals. jack kennedy's pollster could sense the countries restlessness. let's get this country going again. his brother bobby said the key to winning primaries was to go out and meet people. that's what jack did and one. the word strategist is way overused in this business, i limit it to the people, started

with james rowe. no one ever thought harry truman could win in 1948. but rowe saw the coalition and told truman how to rebuild it. he said the party spent too much on fund raiding and not enough on party building. he kept that on his desk every i think -- single day and this changed everything. we will hear a clear and compelling message. we'll see a successful campaign carrying it out to the voter. that's "hardball" for now, thank you for being with us. "all in" with chris hayes starts right now. >> tonight on "all in." >> it was not the subject or the source's fault.

>> a legal troubles are just beginning for "rolling stone" as they finally retract their "rape on campus" story. >> the third one, i can't, oops. plus, growing food in the desert. >> some people have for of a right to water than others. >> throwing out the first pitch at a stadium with two working bathrooms for 35,000 fans. "all in" starts now. good evening from new york. today months after "rolling stone" magazine published a shocking story about a